Hi guys,

Since most of you guys out here are affected by this most of the time, here's a good book that explains about Emotional blackmail :

"Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You", by Susan Forward.

I'm currently reading it, and it's a good source to know when and how I'm being crapped on. It helps a great deal to get some distance from the poison words, once you recognize the form of the abuse.

For example : yesterday, when my narc had an entire episode to "rationalize" how terrible I was for trying to give her a late birthday surprise with the kids, I stood there and thought : " that is just your worthless unfounded emotion-triggering biased opinion, you stupid unknowing crap-minded person"; then I went to sleep peacefully.

I'm still getting to the part with details how to handle each form of emotional abuse, finally some solutions for this sh*t.

As James said, knowledge is power...

... and be good to yourself!

Just out of interest, how did she manage to rationalize that accusation?

"trying to give her a late birthday surprise with the kids" is terrible, because ...?,

The evening was the only moment the whole family could be together, because that day of the week is full with after-school classes (and her language course).

I discussed with the children before about staying up late, and pointed out the risks of waiting for mommy (she will get upset, you will sleep less and have a difficult day at school tomorrow, etc). They chose to stay up, because they were all excited about surprising mom.

Because she arrived back from her language course at 10pm instead of 9:15pm, the kids were up way later than normal; the only thing she hagged on about was that "I do not appreciate this, since the kids should already be in bed!", and I was the one at fault of course.

No matter all the planning and excitement that had taken place, Madam only had eye for the kids' bed time. I did not even want to explain our side of the story, since that would have resulted in the volcano erupting.

Later that evening, she tried to explain more reasons for her refusal : that our birthday surprise was like something you see only in the movies, and movies are not real, so for her our gesture cannot be considered real too, or something along those lines. Anyway, what I did was bad, and I am the lowest form of life on this planet because of it.

My view on it is that she had been building up anger the whole day, as we "forgot" about her birthday obviously, while her friends did send congratulations. When she comes home and sees the opposite, her mountain of anger does not allow her to change moods, and she grabs the first reason that is available ("the kids should be in bed!").

Oh dear - that's really sad. I can relate to that sort of turn-around in my own life. It is not an easy thing to take.

I think I can see both sides of this. On your wife's side, let's say you actually did do everything wrong that day - you made a complete cock-up of the whole thing. Just assume. So to that extent your wife has some justification for telling you about it. She might well be justified in feeling annoyed, especially as the kids' welfare appears to be at stake. However, that being said ...

Your wife still has a choice about how to react.

People with any sort of empathy for their partners would recognise that they (you) were trying to do something nice for her. They would take that into account. I know this because it's what I do. I can get annoyed if a ridiculous, inappropriate, or just impractical arrangement is sprung on me, but then I think "She was trying her best - she wanted to make me happy." So I would let her down a bit more gently. I'd say "Darling, that is so sweet of you, wanting to surprise me like that. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, though, I don't think it is going to work in practice" or whatever.

To be someone who just explodes or mouths off on the spot and fails to take any account of the fact that all you wanted to do was to please her, you have to be a pretty hard person. Exploding in front of the kids, too, when obviously they were hoping to see her face light up with surprise and delight, is just cruel. I've had this sort of switcheroo turned back on me, so I know what it feels like.

So I am just saying that how people interact is not just about who is wrong and who is right. It's also about what level of empathy and caring you have for each other. That's the diagnostic consideration for me. It's so easy to be drawn into worrying about right and wrong, but that is just a distraction from the obvious fact that she just has no feelings for you. That, in the end, is what really matters, and is also what she failed to recognise when she discounted all the care you were showing her. She has no feelings for you, and doesn't care whether you have any for her. That's enough, I'd say, to bail out.

Great analysis, Brian, thank you.

It has been like this for as long as I can remember in our marriage (12y); when she has the choice, she always choses the option that benefits her the most and me the worst. I'm the opposite, but it is definitely affecting me (I start to do the same to her).

This is one of the issues that for me proves her to be a narc; I'm working on bailing out, but it isn't easy with kids involved.

Should have known it a lot earlier, but better late than never...

You're welcome, sir.

I suppose I would have to sum everything up, as I now see it, like this:

In order to get the measure of your relationship/marriage, and to work out what to do about it, ignore what is being said and done. The simple question we need to answer is "What feelings am I getting from this person. Do I feel love, affection, respect, or do I feel anger, blaming and judgment?"

I think that once we can train ourselves to ignore the actual words and behaviour being thrown around, it becomes much easier to tune in to those basic feelings. Whatever she might be saying or doing, you just KNOW how she feels about you. That is what you need to act on.

[BTW, I take your point about the additional complication of having kids in the equation. But still, would it be right to sacrifice the next ten years of your life for the sake of keeping the marriage together 'for the kids'? Would they even prefer to have two parents at home constantly at each other's throats? It's a hard one to answer, I know.]

Oh, I know that I'm not staying in this marriage. From friends I heard other parents that stayed together for the kids, and the kids ended up in jail, on drugs, prostitution, etc. Not here, thank you. There's just too much resentment and frustrations between my wife and me to stay together.

I'm just unsure about the practical arrangements, as I love my kids, but I realize that she can take better care of them (she's a stay-at-home mom). We'll have to work out something we can both agree with (anyone knows how to get around with the narc mother of your kids?)

Pretty sure too that she'll be hovering me in the future to come back, but no thanks, I've seen enough. No contact is not an option here because of the kids, but I'll be on my guard whenever she's around.